What Friends Are For
by eileengarfield
Summary: Four times Leo saved Nico and the one time Nico returned the favour. Valdangelo. Bromance. Fluff.


**what friends are for**

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_.valdangelo bromance._

_.four times Leo saved Nico, and the one time Nico returned the favour._

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_A/N: Please review... even just to say it's a good story, thank you! _**  
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><p>Nico di Angelo was blushing beet red, but he lowered his face, refusing to face the other campers teasing him. There was this Apollo girl who apparently had a crush on him and let loose the secret, unleashing the Hermes cabin on Nico. The cabin was catcalling and murmuring about him wherever he went, and Nico, the young kid he was, didn't know how to deal with it but blush.<p>

Nico was contemplating shadow travelling away and never coming back, not like he ever liked this place. He was always alone wherever he went.

Nico cursed the 9 depths of hell as he walked into another camper with his head down. As he moved to avoid the person he stumbled into, that person had other ideas and grabbed on to Nico's shoulders.

"Whoa Neeks, what happened?" Nico looked up. Leo was looking at him with a worried glint in his eyes, "Wait don't tell me, the Hermes kids?" Nico nodded furiously as Leo pulled Nico along to the Hermes cabin.

Nico looked up alarmed, the blush immediately drained from his face as he took on a paler look, much more fitting for a child of the underworld. Leo hushed him, "Relax buddy, I'm here for you."

Leo pushed open the cabin door without even knocking as he yelled at everyone, "Good morning idiots! Today I would like to express gratitude for your constant showers of affections, but please with hold yourselves, the great McShizzle has already taken hold of this one, ask that girl to find another one, good day!"

He grinned, hugged Nico -who was still spluttering random unformed words- tightly and let lose a paint bomb prototype into the Hermes cabin, sparking up a roar of shock from the Hermes kids. Sure Leo felt bad for paint-bombing the innocent too but he was too caught up to care. The paint bomb was of course, courtesy of Piper for finding out the existence of paint balls.

Henceforth the beginning of the cabin wars.

Nico, still snuggled nicely in Leo's embrace, slowly looked up and gave Leo a small smile, "Thank you." Leo wouldn't have heard it if he had let go or Nico but he did, and Leo simply ruffled Nico's hair in return. "No problemo Casper."

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><p>The second time however, was on the Argo II. Where Nico had unsuspectingly walked on to a deck full of ventis at night.<p>

Nico yelped as he whipped out his Stygian Sword, arms still shaking due to lack of training with the sword. Nico's thoughts were going a thousand miles a second, he couldn't rush to wake the others up, nor could he defeat the venti alone.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

The venti unleashed a series of blood-curdling cries and each of them lashed sharply at Nico. Nico dived from the attacks just in time and barely avoided a slash at his waistline, using the darkness to his advantage, Nico constantly shadow travelled around the deck to catch the venti by surprise.

The first few cuts made it and the ventis went poof, but Nico who was already exhausted, his reaction speed and defenses only slowed as time dragged on.

By the fifth slash, the two ventis was already expecting him and knocked Nico down to his feet into the moonlight. Stygian sword blown away from him, Nico gritted his teeth as the ventis roared and whipped a gust of air at Nico, if Nico fell from this height, no shadow could reach him in time to save him.

Nico braced himself for the fall but instead felt heat and looked up.

"Hey you ugly monsters, get offa my ship!" Leo yelled as he blew gusts of fire at the venti, dressed in only pajama pants.

With Leo keeping the venti busy, Nico rushed to hold up his Stygian Sword and sliced it clean through the ventis while it was distracted, the ventis only managed a screech before it burst into dust, removing all evidence of a monster on board.

Nico fell backwards onto the deck and let his sword retract, tired and exhausted from the fight.

Leo panted slightly from all the jumping around and looked to Nico, "You alright?" and extended an arm to Nico. Nico glanced, "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine."

Leo only grinned in reply. "You can sleep in my room, Captain's orders."

Nico looked puzzled, "Then where will you sleep?". Leo, who was already at the door only grinned sheepishly in reply, "Captain's cabin, largest room on the ship." and disappeared into the shadows. Nico only smiled and trailed after Leo.

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><p>The third time, was after the war.<p>

Nico was walking through the streets under the blazing sun, reminiscing memories from before. As he walked, he didn't notice a slight dip on the side walk, and tripped.

The world seemed to pass in slow motion as Nico's eyes widened and stared glassy at the car driving towards him. Nico was falling towards the road. Nico closed his eyes shut, it was too late for him now, and he slowly eased himself into the fall, hoping he'd go a quick and clean death.

A sudden jerk yanked him out of his trance and pulled him back up just in time before the car rammed him over. Nico stared straight ahead stunned.

"Hello? Neeks? That didn't actually scared you to hell, right?" Leo snapped his fingers in front of Nico's face as he grew worried over Nico's lack of response.

And the moment Nico recovered from the shock, the first thing he said was "Relax. Even if my soul did end up in hell, it'll just shoot straight back up."

Leo paused for a moment and scrunched up his nose, "Why?"

"My dad."

Leo could hardly breathe as he shook all over, laughing hysterically. Now Nico scrunched up his face, "What did I say?"

"Oh Neeks, you gotta tell jokes more often, maybe even the grave yard would livened up." Leo exclaimed still wiping tears from his face.

Nico merely shrugged. "How did you find me anyway?" Leo smiled, "That's what friends are for, idiot."

"For stalking?"

Leo made a note to never get into a debate with Nico.

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><p>The fourth time however, was during a verbal lashing.<p>

"You think you're so cool dressed in black and all that huh? Well guess what, you're just a punk, loser."

Nico had to hold himself steady and ignore the burly meat head standing in front of him.

'_Don't use your powers, don't use your powers, don't use your powers,"_

"Ignoring me huh punk?" The meat head slammed a fist beside Nico's head, he barely even flinched. Nico thought, he's been through worse than jerk heads and dick faces.

However the meat head was oblivious to Nico's obvious restraint and went on with his blabbering, "Face it, we all know you're weird Nico di Angelo, who the hell has a name like that anyway? Your mom must be retarded."

_"Don't use your powers, Nico.. Do it for Bianca."_

The aura around Nico was darkening rapidly, it would be the colour of vacuum, or the lack thereof.

Just as the meat head was about to lash out his next verbal abuse, Nico could bear it no more and slammed both his fists into the meat head's right belly. The bully coughed and sneered at Nico, "You think you're so tough?" and grabbed a metal bat from behind him. Nico's eyes widened.

"Watch this punk," The meat head swung the bat towards him as Nico held up both his arms in defense, the bat met his bones in a sickening thud, but Nico could feel no broken bones, just a big, ugly, black bruise.

_'Perfect, an ugly bruise to match the ugly meathead,' _of course Nico hadn't said it out loud. There were limits to what he could do to civilians with his shadows, however he believes Chiron nor any of the 7 would be pleased with him.

Nico sighed while softly cradling his sore arms as the meat head sneered at him, "Not so pumped up huh punk?" the meat head raised the bat again, readying it for the final blow as Nico glared at the meat head. _'If only he knew he'd be ending up in Tartarus,'_

"Eat this punk!" Nico closed his eyes, braced for the final blow when he heard a familiar cry, "EAT THIS, UGLY."

WHAM.

Nico peeked from his crouching stance and spied a big roll of meat rolling around the floor, and a broken bicycle. Bystanders stood in shock as Leo continued to yell triumphantly, "Pick on some one your own size dick head,"

Leo proceeded to whack the lug of meat's head with a severed part of the bicycle tire.

Nico could only stare in shock.

Leo looked back at Nico, "What? He had it coming," Nico couldn't decide whether to laugh at Leo's inappropriately timed jokes, or hit his head again just to make sure Leo really did do just that. Leo shook his head and looked at Nico, "Anyway, how're your arms? If it's just a bruise I can whip up some ointment and bandage real quick, just hold on..."

As Leo dug around in his tool belt, Nico slowly stood to pull Leo away from the scene. Hades only knows what kind of ride Nico hitched himself in... no pun intended.

Soon as Leo had Nico all patched up and satisfied, he wrapped his arms around Nico's shoulders, choosing to ignore now that Nico was almost the same height as him, just a few inches shy of reaching the top of Leo's head.

"Quit pulling stunts like that man, I might just fly off the top one of these days," Nico gave Leo a disbelieving look.

"You rammed a bicycle into a meat head and you call me out for pulling a stunt?"

Leo smacked his lips. "Touche."

"Unbelievable."

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><p>The fifth time however, it was rather ironic, really.<p>

They were at a motel where there was both a beach and a swimming pool, the team was just letting off some steam when it happened.

"Nico watch out!"

Nico barely had time to register the cry before he himself was slammed aside by the monster. Nico didn't know what it was, perhaps Annabeth did, but he really couldn't be bothered with a learn-on-the-experience trip right now.

When Nico's vision cleared, Nico looked up to see the monster heading towards Leo with it's slimy tentacles.

If Leo isn't out cold now, he soon will be. What did the monster want from Leo? Nico quickly slid the thought out of his mind as he rushed towards Leo's aid, the rest of the team already stretched out too far out to be of any help.

Leo barely managed a flimsy flame that torched the monster's tentacles, the monster squealed and attacked Leo, quickly latching itself onto Leo's neck, squeezing the air out of him.

Leo gasped, turning blue by the second.

"Leo slide out of the way dude!" Nico slashed his sword against the tentacle and one of it fell off.

Nico quickly glanced backwards but caught a glimpse of Leo's limp form lying against the floor.

All at once, Nico's anger pooled out and the shadows darkened terrifyingly around Nico, even in broad daylight.

He turned his attention back to the monster in front of him. "Let's see you slip out of this one you grimy monster!" Nico gave a roar and commanded the shadows to hold the monster in place while he sliced his way into the heart of the monster, getting whacked a few times by the sea slime's poisonous tentacles.

Nico let out an ear piercing roar as he dug in the final blow, ignoring the stings from the sea slime he dived the sword steadily into the heart, then he held his breath and pulled the sword sideways with all his might, cutting the slime in half. Once the monster disintegrated, Nico let the anger wash off him as he hurried by Leo's side.

"Hey, hey, Leo? You there buddy?" Nico quickly grew worried, did the poison seep into Leo? Was he too late? He was about to get a heart attack when Leo let out a wheeze and a serious of coughs. Nico released the breath he wasn't even aware he was holding.

Leo merely grinned, "Hey, I told you there was something fishy going on around here." Nico promptly smacked Leo's head, "Ow... okay okay, maybe we could go for some dry humour instead?" Nico gave a weak grin, "You scared me there Leo, I thought.. I thought I was gonna lose-" Leo cut him short by pulling Nico into a big hug, even though his muscles ached.

"You pulled off some pretty striking moves for the king of shadows," Leo ruffled up Nico's hair.

Nico grinned, "Let's get you washed up." and proceeded to carry Leo back into the motel, holding himself back from commenting on Leo's lack of weight.

"Thanks,"

This time it was Leo's turn to smile.

"That's what friends are for."


End file.
